uch as
turn his head toward the house. Trembling with excitement she hurries
little Frank into his wagon and telling Hattie to bring me, sets off up
the road as fast as she can draw the baby's cart. It all seems a dream
to me and I move dumbly, almost stupidly like one in a mist....

We did not overtake the soldier, that is evident, for my next vision is
that of a blue-coated figure leaning upon the fence, studying with
intent gaze our empty cottage. I cannot, even now, precisely divine why
he stood thus, sadly contemplating his silent home,--but so it was. His
knapsack lay at his feet, his musket was propped against a post on whose
top a cat was dreaming, unmindful of the warrior and his folded hands.

He did not hear us until we were close upon him, and even after he
turned, my mother hesitated, so thin, so hollow-eyed, so changed was he.
"Richard, is that you?" she quaveringly asked.

His worn face lighted up. His arms rose. "Yes, Belle! Here I am," he
answered.

Nevertheless though he took my mother in his arms, I could not relate
him to the father I had heard so much about. To me he was only a strange
man with big eyes and care-worn face. I did not recognize in him
anything I had ever known, but my sister, who was two years older than
I, went to his bosom of her own motion. She knew him, whilst I submitted
to his caresses rather for the reason that my mother urged me forward
than because of any affection I felt for him. Frank, however, would not
even permit a kiss. The gaunt and grizzled stranger terrified him.

"Come here, my little man," my father said.--"_My little man!_" Across
the space of half-a-century I can still hear the sad reproach in his
voice. "Won't you come and see your poor old father when he comes home
from the war?"

"My little man!" How significant that phrase seems to me now! The war
had in very truth come between this patriot and his sons. I had
forgotten him--the baby had never known him.

Frank crept beneath the rail fence and stood there, well out of reach,
like a cautious kitten warily surveying an alien dog. At last the
soldier stooped and drawing from his knapsack a big red apple, held it
toward the staring babe, confidently calling, "Now, I guess he'll come
to his poor old pap home from the war."

The mother apologized. "He doesn't know you, Dick. How could he? He was
only nine months old when you went away. He'll go to you by and by."

The babe crept slowly toward the shining